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[ by Charles Cameron — what’s the value of a human life in tweets, in column inches, in my attention span? ]
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I really don’t have much to say — I’ve lived a year in Paris, have never been to Nigeria, am human.

"Dead bodies are littered everywhere." Boko Haram has carried out a week-long massacre in northeast Nigeria. http://t.co/GOFS0UpRMO

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 9, 2015

Learning from Twitter that being killed in Paris makes a person far more important, worthy of discussion than being killed in Baga, Nigeria.

— drew hinshaw (@drewfhinshaw) January 9, 2015

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I was in Managua shortly after the 1972 earthquake there, driving past block after block of city rubble with yellow flags indicating the locations of bodies buried too deep to be recovered. My Pentax served to dilute and capture my emotions then, as my DoubleTweet and other formalisms do now with these mind-numbing horrors piled on horrors.

[ by Charles Cameron — in brief: Zuma, Mugabe, Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Saint Paul ]
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I keep on thinking we’ve seen enough, but no: the heady blend of statacraft and religion — all too often, apocalyptic, “end times” religion — just keeps on cropping up. Here are three more DoubleQuotes, these ones centering around President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, with scattered flashes of Robert Mugabe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Saint Paul.

One:

Two:

Three:

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I’m way behind after ten or so days of a cough and cold, yesterday I was more or less up and about, and today feels normal with mild residuals, so I’m trying to get this post out at last, and won’t make any comments about the specific pairings — except to say that my long-running obsession with matters eschatological seems to lead me into the far corners of almost everything.

Which considering how déclassé and generally marginal a topic “the end times” is generally assumed to be, makes me feel both very fortunate and somewhat astonished. Go figure.

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

 

Yale organizational behaviorist Rodrigo Canales has an interesting talk on the Narco-insurgency in Mexico ( which he correctly sees as having been as lethal as Syria’s civil war). While this won’t be news to close students of Mexico’s cartel wars, Canales explains how Los Zeta, La Familia, Knights Templar and Sinaloa cartel violence is neither random nor strictly criminal on criminal  violence but is used as part of organizational strategies to create distinctive “franchise brands”, amplify political messaging,  reinforce effects of social service investment in the communities they control and maximize market efficiency of narcotics sales and other contraband. COIN, 4GW and irregular warfare folks will all see familiar elements in Canales management theory driven perspective.

A useful short tutorial considering the cartels are operating inside the United States and their hyper-violent tactics are eventually going to follow.

[ by Charles Cameron — 1984 comes to Venezuela? ]
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I had just finished posting the somewhat Orwellian DoubleQuote above and a set of quotes from Biblical and Qur’anic sources in my welcoming comments on Adam Elkus‘s inaugural post here, which itself drew on Orwellian dystopia for its imagery, when a friend pointed me to an article about the recent institution of a Vice-Ministry for Supreme Happiness by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

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Bingo, Orwell again! Responses on Twitter were quick to invoke 1984:

Maduro crea el Viceministerio de la Suprema Felicidad del Pueblo (nombre como sacado de un libro de Orwell). Como no se nos ocurrió antes!?

— LuisFelipe SanMartín (@sanmartinLF) October 24, 2013

En neolenguaje de régimen totalitario vzlno creado Minfel (ministerio de la felicidad). Próximos: Minver (de la verdad); Minamor (del amor)

— Johnny Romero G. (@jorogom) October 25, 2013

El órgano estatal que regulará la escasez y la pelazón en Venezuela se llamará "VICEMINISTERIO DE LA SUPREMA FELICIDAD" .. Orwell lo predijo

— Arimeu Qojole (@ChapulinND) October 25, 2013

In Orwell’s 1984, four ministries control Oceania:

Minitrue is the Ministry of Truth, which controls literature and oversees propaganda

Minipax, the Ministry of Peace, oversees warfare

Miniplenty, the Ministry of Plenty, controls rationing of food and other goods, and

Miniluv, the Ministry of Love, deals appropriately with heretics and dissidents

I disclaim any deep knowledge of Venezuelan politics, although Ahmadinejad‘s claim that Chávez would be resurrected to accompany the Mahdi and Christ when they return certainly caught my attention… but these literary references impress me.

Specifically, the Venezuelan tweeters above suggest that Orwell “predicted” the Venezuelan Vice-Ministry, and that it will be followed next by Venezuelan versiuons of Minitrue and Miniluv.

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George Orwell, the man of the hour / day / year / century / millennium… ?

[ by Charles Cameron — finding both rhyme and obscenity here, to be honest — San Salvador then, Mexico today ]
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I once had the privilege of hearing Carolyn Forché read her poems.

You can read and hear her reading the prose poem from which that excerpt is taken here — for richer background on her experiences in El Salvador, see her extraordinary essay El Salvador: An Aide-Mémoire in Granta, or find a copy of The American Poetry Review for July/August 1981, pp. 3-7.

Sources:

Carolyn Forché, The Country Between Us

Sunil S, El Narco and the Jihad in Pragati, illus credit: El cartel de San Luis

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I know, in the title of this post I’m conflating a quote attributed to Mark Twain, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”, with Bob Dylan‘s “Money doesn’t talk, it swears”. So be it.

As Dylan also once said: “I said that.”